After Jeffrey Gettleman filed two excellent dispatches from Iraq in as many days:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/07/international/middleeast/07SADR.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/06/international/middleeast/06KUFA.html
I wondered why today's dispatch from Iraq was written by Christine Hauser. It turns out that when she said
Two journalists working for The New York Times and two of their Iraqi
staff were detained by insurgents in a small town outside Baghdad for
three hours on Wednesday. They were released unharmed and allowed to
leave the town, which was completely controlled by the insurgents.
she meant Gettleman and a freelance journalist:
http://www.pdnonline.com/photodistrictnews/headlines/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000482012
and the day before something similar happened to John Burns:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/07/international/middleeast/07REPO.html?pagewanted=print&position=
(although it may not immediately obviously thanks to the Grey Lady's "never say I" rule). He was similarly held, completely at the power of kidnappers, in a town completely controlled by insurgents.
I wonder where reporters get this idea that the US is losing control?
Good thing these Shias are nothing like the Shias in Lebanon in the 80s who kidnapped reporters and other people and kept them.
All three of these stories by Gettleman and Burns have kicker last paragraphs.
Michael